Angell and Mahan: Lessons for Today

Norman Angell and Alfred Thayer Mahan argued more than a century ago that globalization and new technologies were challenging economic and security interests. Mahan’s warnings seemed to be born out by WWI, WWII, and the Cold War. Angell’s optimism was reflected by the emergence of the ECSC/EC/EU, and the surge of democracies and trade by the 1990s. In this century, though, Mahan seems resurgent, in Russia and China’s naval expansions and in cyberspace.